BIRD GIRL

I stand looking down at the Steinway grand piano. “It’s just you and me,” I say, pretending not to be sharing the room with two thousand other people. I feel my bare feet on the ground, sensing into the earth below the orchestra pit. The same earth Steinway’s bass, treble and point legs stand upon. My feet grow heavy. The weight of the piano sinking in my gut. Swallowing my tears, I whisper to the beauty in front of me, “We share this space and seat in the house, it is my honor to play with you. Take my hands and make them yours.”

Trudging slowly towards her, I feel my black silk dress slide down my spine as I unwittingly glide into the sleek, satin bench. Everything softens. I close my eyes. My hands hover above the keyboard, electricity radiating underneath my fingertips. There is magnetic energy between my fingers and the keys, connected yet unseen.

Playing the piano was everything I ever loved and resented. I was a good pianist. My mother was better. Think Martha Argerich, prodigy, performing at age 8. Only my mother performed in home concerts (for me and my Grandmother), never having the opportunity to play for an audience such as this. Instead, she became a single mother. A terrible predicament, for she could have been one of the greatest.

Unabashedly, she poured everything she knew about art, music, composition, and her passions unto me. She was wild like the universe. She knew how to give herself over to the creative life force piercing through her soul. Her presence was mystical and divine. When I listened, I could hear her heart roar. Never could I tell if she played the music or if the music played her. Witnessing spirit at work between self and source is extraordinarily painful. My mother sacrificed everything, without regret, never doubting her decision – to raise me. She put everything into me. From the day I was born she called me, “my little Bird Girl.” She was the one made of magic though. Full of mystery and inner knowing, with more courage than I will ever know.

“I want this one to be for you mom…”

But my fingers feel cold. The light from behind the curtain glares at me, it’s so bright. I blink and memories flood my mind, like flashes of lightning -- I see my spoiled rotten younger self hysterically laughing while crying for attention; bloody knees and noses, screaming at the top of my lungs, slamming doors, throwing books, tearing up scores. Ripping skirts at the seams, pounding my fists… on her piano, that last time because I wasn’t playing well enough.

“Play with grace,” she would say.

She had so much grace. Always calm. She never pushed me. Yet I constantly pushed her, and myself. I did everything I could to cause worry. Then at night, she would still sit next to me – patient, quiet, unmoving, until I was ready to play again. She loved me. All she ever wanted to do was play with me. My only concern was, “Well, I’ll never be as good as her.” Self-centered and unwilling to see, terrified to be set free.

Chilled to the bones. Frozen fingers now. Her perfection haunts me. I hear her words from the wings, “Close your eyes. Listen for the night music and play.”

“You grew up on a farm!” I gulp down my guttural reaction, burying the scream in my throat. They had nothing until years later when Grandpa sold everything. He sold her piano. Why would anyone do that to their child who was brilliant at it? I would have been devastated. But she cared differently than I do, playing mostly for fun with her extreme natural abilities. Every time she played, she blew everyone out of the water. People in town would come over just to hear her play. “Please play for us Marguerite, one of your favorites or one of those little ditties you made up.” They were far from simple. Never commenting that she preferred to be called Margot, she obliged.

Mother was a modest musician, saying “I couldn’t do all that on my own,” or “I never played alone” or “you think I did that all by myself?!” She spoke of her helpers, seen and unseen like it was a secret. Growing up, one of her favorite friends was a barn owl. She told stories of how the owl would sing with her while she played, and watched over her on nights she was alone. Mother swore the owl lived as long as she lived there, then followed her to the city when they moved. But as the noise grew inside and around her, she couldn’t hear its purring call any longer.

“Bird Girl…” my heart beat flutters from the sound within. I open my eyes and pray to god her owl is still alive somewhere.

“This one is for me.”

My pulse moves up my throat. Breathing out, my face softens. Inhale. Heat exhales around me, blowing like wind through my lips, down my arms towards my fingers. I feel the tissues under my skin – smooth and tender, they begin to breath. My fingers gently in tune with one another. They begin to play. I’m holding stars in the palm of my hands. Fear dissipates across my chest. Settling into my seat, my spine lengthens, tailbone falls under. My lungs expand into the cave that is my ribs. The inner sides of my body grows upwards and my arms reach outwards. Wind in my ears, swooshes in, swirling down around my back and waist, whizzing in spirals up my torso. Whoosh…whoosh. Feels like I’m floating in the eye of a beautiful hurricane.

There is smoothness in my limbs. Senses tingle at my fingertips. Fluttering across my chest – a crack upward in my spine, my heart expands, trunk elongates… Abruptly, my arms shoot outright to my sides –

The world is so still, all you can hear is the buzzing hum of the notes played. The room is black besides a flicker of light inside me. The audience is silent, watching in exaltation… this transformation. My fingers spread wide making space for the feathers to breathe. Slowly… gently … tenderly… my wings begin to flap. Sound unheard to the human ear. My wings close around me and Steinway. Downy fringe from its feathers wisp the keys without ever touching a single note.

Claws tip tap the pedals, creating movement upwards as I fly in and out between my seat and the grand piano. I hear the music of every string, bass and treble, finely tuned and tinctured together like a mad scientist and all winged creatures. There is a murmuration of starlings to my right, twisting and swirling, swooshing into shape-shifting clouds. The birds are dancing with me.

Bird girls can fly.